"King Kong"

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King Kong is the name of a fictional giant ape from the fictional Skull Island, who has appeared in several works since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 film, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, and numerous sequels. His role in the different narratives varies from source to source, ranging from mindless monster to tragic antihero. The rights to the character are currently held by Universal Studios, with limited rights held by the estate of Merian C. Cooper.

Overview
In the original film, the character's name is Kong -- a name given to him by the inhabitants of "Skull Island" in the Indian Ocean, where Kong lived along with other over-sized animals such as a plesiosaur, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs. 'King' is an appellation added by an American film crew led by Carl Denham, who captures Kong and takes him to New York City to be exhibited as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Kong escapes and climbs the Empire State Building (the World Trade Center in the 1976 remake) where he is shot and killed by aircraft. Nevertheless, as Denham comments, "it was beauty killed the beast", for he climbed the building in the first place only in an attempt to protect Ann Darrow, an actress originally offered up to Kong as a sacrifice. (In the 1976 remake the equivalent character is named Dwan.)

A mockumentary about Skull Island on the DVD for the 2005 remake (but originally seen on the Sci-Fi Channel at the time of its theatrical release) gives Kong's scientific name as Megaprimatus kong, and states that his species may have evolved from Gigantopithecus. In the original, Kong was 18 feet tall on the island and 24 feet in New York. In the 1976 remake, he's about 50 feet tall while in the 2005 remake he is 25 feet tall.

The King Kong character was conceived and created by US filmmaker Merian C. Cooper.

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